Dissertation Oral Defenses
According to scholars of Leonardo da Vinci, he is becoming two dichotomous images: a scholarly one and a public one, and they are becoming alarmingly divergent. This dissertation addresses this matter by using a transdisciplinary framework developed to deepen the understanding of this fifteen-century Italian Renaissance giant. This framework includes historiography but also goes beyond…
This dissertation study engages the lived experience of communism in România from a depth psychological perspective that is additionally informed by somatic studies. This research takes as its start twenty-two oral history interviews conducted with individuals who lived through communism’s routines and who experienced them as ordinary and “everlasting”—a finding conceptualized by Yurchak’s (2006) dialectical…
This qualitative study bridges hermeneutic, phenomenological, and transdisciplinary inquiry through an embodied lens, examining how proprioception—an inner sense of perception or a sense of being embodied—informs how people know through the body. By reviewing literature within depth psychology, philosophy, and areas of practice, this research builds upon a cross pollination of ideas to deepen, celebrate,…
The foundational mytheme of Maiden in the Tower stories is rooted in self-oppression. In those stories, oppressive social conditioning refutes the absurdly diverse nature of homo sapien sapiens’ existence by accentuating the pseudo-benefits of compliance and complacency with oppressive norms. Albert Camus’s Sisyphus and Star Trek’s Seven of Nine are Tower-like characters who utilize an…
United States servicemembers, veterans, and their families live in a world of multi-dimensional humanity filled with mythos and yet, in most cases are completely unaware of its existence. Modern secularization and industrial ideologies have been used by societies to sever martial rituals and symbols from their mythological roots, diluting, disguising, and calcifying them as customs,…
The origins of cesarean birth have a complicated history and mythology, from Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine born through cesarean birth, to modern advances in healthcare. Yet there is much that remains unknown about the lived experience of this specific procedure. Cesarean birth can be quantified and stratified by race and ethnicity and justified…
This qualitative study uses a narrative portraiture methodology to produce a phenomenological description of the lived experience of empaths toward understanding how their transpersonal experiences affect the process of individuation in themselves and others. Interviews with six individuals, including the researcher, who identified as empaths served as the basis of the study. The research explores…
This research explores variations in the experience of whiteness-as-lived within the narrative accounts of white Americans, focusing on how positionality affects the development of identities, sociopolitical beliefs, and conceptions of whiteness as a site of social power and privilege. Centered upon a framework of critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, the research posits the…
Rarely have patients with a life-threatening blood cancer that has been treated with a potentially curative stem cell transplant been invited and allowed to describe the experience. This research study utilized a narrative inquiry methodology to explore the lived experience of 13 participants, who were either interviewed or asked to provide written or audio responses…
This research explores the phenomenon of maternal mortality in the United States and the racial health disparities embedded within it, with an emphasis on racism as the root cause. Among developed countries in the global north, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate, which affects Black women disproportionately. Black women die in childbirth…
Qualitative interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to explore the phenomena of extraordinary experiences, otherwise known as transpersonal, numinous, transcendent, alternate states of consciousness, mystical or spiritual experiences, peak experiences, extreme states, etc., and their emergence within the mental health system, often labeled as “psychosis” and/or other psychiatric diagnoses. The impact of pathologizing such experiences and…
The purpose of this study was to discover the common elements needed to sustain mutual love and devotion in long-term, committed partnerships. This study utilized a descriptive phenomenological method to understand the lived experiences of long term committed couples. Five couples in mutually satisfying, loving relationships for at least 20 years were interviewed to understand…
This study utilized Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to explore ecopsychological perspectives of female patients with borderline traits. Six clinicians were interviewed to explore the lived experience of working with female patients with borderline traits from eco-informed perspectives. The analysis of the interview transcripts yielded five superordinate themes: Nature as a Resource; Addressing the Borderline Wound Through…
This dissertation is an inquiry into the problem of death. It begins with the premise that death alone is not a problem. Rather, it takes love to transform the cool fact of death into the heated psychological event of loss. Death would have no sting and nowhere near the meaning it has in our lives…
The 27 Club is a cultural meme, encompassing the collective fascination with and mythologization of famous musicians who died at age 27. To investigate its underlying archetypal factors, this hermeneutical study analyzes the textual material of four of its six most prominent artists (Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse), utilizing the interpretive…
The purpose of this research was to give voice to a population that is rarely heard from, they are, the Jamaican elders. This research further set out to record the lived experiences of the elders during the colonialism (1928-1962) period and determine how the role of spirituality, religion, and the numinous shaped their lives. The…
This theoretical dissertation aims to decolonize the voluntourism industry through a critical, depth psychologically-informed lens. By addressing the cultural complexes founded in white supremacy that inform the voluntourism industry, this dissertation explores how young American adults engage in neocolonial practices through performative voluntourism programs disguised as legitimate humanitarian efforts. The thesis asserts that the voluntourism…
The purpose of this study was to discover how the creation or adaptation of a ritual practice can affect suicide survivors’ ability to adapt to the experience of the suicide of an important person in their life. Using a methodology of narrative inquiry this research examined ten participants’ stories. Participants were chosen from among persons…
This qualitative study analyzes and describes the experiences of licensed psychologists at inpatient psychiatric facilities engaging with people with psychosis. The study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to address the research question: How do licensed clinical psychologists describe and understand their experiences working with patients with psychosis at inpatient psychiatric facilities? The researcher conducted and transcribed…
Horror fiction and depth psychology seem to run parallel to one another among scholars and readers, rarely intersecting. Yet horror fiction regularly deals with elements of depth psychology, including the soul, archetype, and the shadow. Depth psychology finds rich territory within the fictional world of horror in extrapolation of the shadow, pathologies, and nightmares. An…
